The ESA cut is part of a drive to close the employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people, although the target to achieve this in 2020 has been scrapped. Almost everybody assumes that most people placed in the Work related activity group will eventually get better and move into work. Nobody could have been more convinced of this that all the Tory MPs who voted for the ESA cut.

However, a 2014 Upper Tribunal judgment throws a different light on this. The 3 judge panels did not make a judgement on the suitability of placing some disabled people in the WRAG, but interpreted the law. This is what they said:

Although Mrs L had not put her case in quite this way, it would be fair to state it like this. The tribunal has accepted that I am not able to sustain sufficient activity to be capable of work and my condition is not going to improve, so what is the point of making me undertake activity to prepare me for work of which I will never be capable? The answer is that the law is not structured in that way. There are claimants who are not capable of work and never will be capable of work but whose condition and disabilities are not such that they can satisfy the conditions for the support group. To put it another way, the support group is not for those who will never be capable of work. It is for a narrower category. That may explain why, by Mrs L’s report, her Jobcentre Plus adviser has not asked her to undertake any work-related activity.

In other terms, claimants are placed in the WRAG not because they may be able to work again at some stage, but because they do not tick the right boxes to be assigned to the Support Group. These people who may have a progressive illness or have a prognosis of 2 years or over, which DWP recognised means unlikely to work again[ii] will suffer from April 2017 a cut of 1/3 of their income in exchange for employment support they do not need or cannot use. We know from a FOI request that 5,000 claimants have been in the WRAG since 2008[iii]. And DWP own figures show that 388,700 claimants (37%) have been placed in the WRAG since 2008 with a prognosis of 2 years or more[iv]. (click on the picture)

As the inherent flaws in the WCA have not been addressed, from April 2017 claimants who the DWP recognises are unlikely to work again will be still placed in the WRAG. To add insult to injury, non only they would have to survive on very little money, be subjected to sanctions, and have uncovered extra needs due to their disability (only ½ claimants in the WRAG are claiming DLA or PIP), but it is very likely they would have to attend unnecessary Work Related Interviews by the sheer fact of being assigned to the WRAG

It makes a mockery of the Work Capability Assessment, which has nothing to do with assessing work readiness and capability in spite of its name, but whose whole purpose is to arbitrary assigns claimants to some groups, based on criteria that the government can change at will, according to how much money they are willing to spend on disabled people.

If your MP is a conservative who voted for the ESA cut, you should ask their thoughts about what should or will happen to these claimants in the WRAG who from April 2007 have been assessed by DWP as ‘unlikely to ever work again’.

[suffusion-the-author]

3 Responses to “Is everyone in the WRAG likely to work again? Not according to one Upper Tribunal”

This isn’t a new issue, the spin put forward by Labour’s James Purnell that WRAG was for those who were likely to improve has never been reflected by the actual law. This blatant lie was used by the Tories to justify the cut of Contribution Based ESA to just one year’s entitlement for those in WRAG and is now being used to cut the weekly amount by £30.

The conditions for the two groups simply reflect different levels of severity of disability, not a likelihood of working again.

I’ve been put in wrag through fainting. I don’t even have a diagnosis yet, but they can give me a prognosis of “better within twelve months” Since then I’ve been referred to cardiology. They’ve no idea whether I’ll get better or not and I’ve had to get the mp onto them as they put me straight on work programme and I cant travel alone. Absolutely there must be people in WRAG who wont get better.

I find this is not hard to believe I haven’t had an assessment since 2010 although 2 paper assessments in between the last one in 2013 and I threatened to take the DWP and ATOS to court because of the wording on one form. That form was the ESA72 and the wording was
WE WILL CONTACT YOU AGAIN ON OR AFTER (DATE) Is that why they changed the form in 2014 and removed the contact on or after from the ESA72?